A wireless ad hoc network is a collection of nodes that communicate by forming a multi-hop radio network without the need of an infrastructure. Nodes in an ad hoc network forward information (e.g., frames) to other nodes by selecting one of the available routes to the destination node based on several parameters, such as link quality, round trip time, etc. Generally ad hoc nodes do not have a fixed topology, but ad hoc networks can be fixed and perform multi-hopping. Nodes can join the ad hoc network and leave dynamically, and the ad hoc networks can vary in the degree of mobility. The ad hoc network heals itself by selecting alternate routes to the destination node, and each node in an ad hoc network can be viewed as a router. The dynamic formation of ad hoc networks, the ability to setup a network anywhere without the need of infrastructure, and the self healing characteristic makes the ad hoc network very necessary for situations, such as public safety incident scenes, where infrastructure connectivity (e.g., access points) might not be available.
An ad hoc network does not always have access to the infrastructure and therefore cannot resolve domain names, such as “www.motorola-ems com”, into IP addresses. Today, a domain name service (DNS) is implemented in a hierarchical fashion with every node setup with two static DNS entries for operating in an infrastructure-based network; this mechanism fails to work in an ad hoc network where nodes can dynamically join and leave the network. Two nodes in an ad hoc network could statically be assigned to act as primary and secondary DNS nodes to provide name resolution; however, both nodes may become unavailable at any time due to the dynamic nature of the ad hoc network.
Thus, there exists a need to provide a method for DNS in an ad hoc network.